While the police chief's assertion that “[i]t was not a mistake to shoot the pit bull,” might be true, to some degree, it's one of those childish "He started it" arguments.

It was most certainly a mistake (understatement of the century) by the police to allow armed, armoured police officers to enter, by force, the home of one of their citizens and subject his family to the unnecessary disruption they caused.

Perhaps the uproar caused by this video (the police force has received numerous complaints and a death threat by fax machine), which currently has ... 851,326 views on YouTube (and the delightfully misspelled caveat "WARNING: This video contains graphic or objectionable content or langauge") will cause some kind of a change. Particularly given the recent damning report on the "success" of the War on Drugs".

What's more disturbing about the whole thing is that this happens 100-150 times a day. I remember reading about an incident like this in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books. It's not a new phenomenon. Perhaps the internet will triumph once again, and demonstrate the American establishment that this is not really an acceptable way to treat voters.